Punished for your lousy parking at work? Is that legal?

Jobs roundtable

FILE - In this April 14, 2008 file photo new Audi and Volkswagen cars stand ready for export at the harbour of Emden, northern Germany. Germany's Federal Statistics Office says Wednesday, Aug. 8, 2012, the country's exports dropped in June as the European financial crisis continues to weaken other countries within the eurozone. Exports dropped 1.5 percent in June over May, to euro 92.3 billion, when adjusted for seasonal discrepancies and work days. Imports dropped 3 percent to euro 76.1 billion for a trade surplus of euro 16.2 billion. (AP Photo/dapd, Nigel Treblin)
— AP

FILE - In this April 14, 2008 file photo new Audi and Volkswagen cars stand ready for export at the harbour of Emden, northern Germany. Germany's Federal Statistics Office says Wednesday, Aug. 8, 2012, the country's exports dropped in June as the European financial crisis continues to weaken other countries within the eurozone. Exports dropped 1.5 percent in June over May, to euro 92.3 billion, when adjusted for seasonal discrepancies and work days. Imports dropped 3 percent to euro 76.1 billion for a trade surplus of euro 16.2 billion. (AP Photo/dapd, Nigel Treblin)
/ AP

Q: At the company I work for a coworker was asked to move and straighten out her car in the parking lot because her car was on the line but not extending outside. The next time this happens to her again she will be written up. That's ridiculous! Is this fair?

A: Fair or not, it's legal, says Dan Eaton, employment attorney at San Diego law firm Seltzer Caplan McMahon & Vitek. Assuming that the employee is "at will," she can be terminated or disciplined for a cause so long as it doesn't violate labor laws on issues like discrimination.

"The California Supreme Court has ruled that an at-will employee may be terminated 'for no reason, or for an arbitrary or irrational reason' as long as that reason does not offend a fundamental public policy," Eaton said. (If you are employed at will, your employer does not need good cause to fire you.) "It is legally insignificant that the at-will employee considers the rule or its enforcement trivial as long as the enforcement of the rule is not really just as an excuse, or pretext, from some unlawful motive the employer has for disciplining the employee."

Eaton said this means that the employee can be disciplined, or fired, for parking in a way that bothers the employer.

"There is no fundamental public policy giving people an absolute right to park right on the line of an employer-owned parking space or which prohibits an employer from disciplining an employee who does so," he said.

So essentially, if the employer is a stickler about parking, or leaving your computer on after work, or not pushing your chair in a certain way when you leave, you probably should go along with it.

Still, Eaton said that employers should be careful when they terminate someone for an odd reason. Despite the state's "at will" laws, there is still a possibility of a wrongful termination lawsuit, if an ex-employee alleges a true bias in the firing.

"The flimsier the reason for the termination, the harder it will be for the employer to defend against a claim that the stated motive was actually a pretext for an unlawful motive," Eaton said. "If an employee can make a facial showing that she was fired for an unlawful reason, the employer generally must then articulate a “legitimate” reason untainted by bias or other illegality, and then the employee would have the ultimate burden of showing that the stated reason was really an excuse hiding the true, unlawful reason for the discharge.